The local share market looks likely to open higher this morning following a rally on Wall St overnight after G20 leaders agreed over the weekend to keep government stimulus in place until the recovery was certain. Stronger commodity prices may also help to give resource stocks a boost today.
The local share market closed stronger on Monday with the S&P/ASX 200 Index is up 81 points at 4,675. Looking at the futures market the SPI200’s up 78 points.
Checking currencies at 8:45 AM the Aussie Dollar is buying 92.98 US cents, 83.69 Yen, 62.03 Euro cents and 55.52 Pence Sterling. In economic news: The NAB monthly business survey for October is due out today, as well as the Melbourne Institute employment report for November.
In company news, Shares in processor of coking coal to produce metallurgical coal Rocklands Richfield Ltd (ASX:RCI) gained 3.8 per cent to $0.41 yesterday. The company says a takeover offer from China’s Meijin Energy Group to acquire the company at an offer price of 52 cents a share is superior to a rival offer made by India’s Jindal Steel and Power. Rocklands says Jindal has sweetened its offer to 50 cents a share, valuing the company at $194.98 million, but is still below that 52 cents being offered by Meijin. Jindal had until yesterday to further revise its proposal, and as yet no revised offer has been announced. Rocklands is engaged in processing coal to produce metallurgical coke and other by-products in China and coal exploration on the company’s tenements in the Queensland Bowen Basin. Rocklands Richfield posted a profit of $23.98 million in 2008.
Shares in agribusiness services provider AWB Ltd (ASX:AWB) rose 0.43 per cent to $1.16 yesterday. The company has again come under fire from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission who have launched fresh legal action against former AWB CEO Andrew Lindberg. According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, the corporate watchdog alleges that Mr Lindberg misled fellow directors of the company for two years by not informing them that AWB had been involved in corrupt payments of up to US$225 million to Saddam Hussein’s regime. ASIC also alleges that Mr Lindberg mislead his colleagues about an internal investigation into the kickbacks called Project Rose, preventing them from learning about AWB’s dealings with Alia, the company used by Iraq to receive the payments. Looking at the past five years AWB has recorded inconsistent net profits.
Checking ex-dividends: and going today we have Desane Group Holdings with a 2 cent unfranked dividend, Hillgrove Resources with a 1 cent fully franked dividend, and Washington H. Soul Pattinson & Company with a 44 cent fully franked dividend.
Over to international markets: Wall Street higher - The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 204 points. The S&P500 Index is 24 points higher and the NASDAQ gained 42 points.
European markets were also stronger: London’s FTSE rose 92 points, Paris gained 78 points and Frankfurt is up 131.
Asian markets were higher: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 378. Tokyo’s Nikkei rose 20 while the Shanghai Composite added 12.
Looking at metals: Gold is $5.90 higher at US$1101.60 an ounce for the December contract on Comex. Silver up 9 cents to US$17.46 and copper is one cent higher at US$2.97.
And the price of oil is $2 higher at US$79.43 a barrel for December light crude in New York.
